The mysterious ancient Buddhist kingdom of Khotan lies on the Silk Road

"Everything changes"

One of the most basic teachings of Buddhism is that "everything changes" - and that even applies to the religion itself. In places where Buddhism once flourished, it may have disappeared, and in places far from the origin of Buddhism, things may have taken root. Time and place, history and geography are always moving.

Such was the case with the ancient Buddhist kingdom of Khotan, a land believed to have been formed by the withdrawal of a mountain lake.

Map of the ancient Khotan kingdom.

Khotan is the name of an oasis and major city on the ancient Silk Road, a trade network that connected Europe, India and China across the vast desert regions of Central Asia for more than 2,000 years. prior to.

To the north of Khotan lies one of the driest and most desolate desert climates on earth, the Taklamakan Desert, and to the south lies the largely uninhabited Kunlun Mountains (Qurum).

To the east there are few oases outside of Niya, making travel difficult and access is only relatively easy from the west. The territory of the present-day kingdom belongs to the land of Xinjiang, China.

A vast desert covers the Tarim Basin in Central Asia.

According to historical records, Khotan was once a dual colony, first settled in the third century BC by an Indian prince, one of the sons of the legendary Asoka the Great. Dialogue [304-232 BC], who was banished from India after Asoka took refuge in the Buddha.

The second settlement belonged to an exiled Chinese king. After a battle, the two colonies merged.

For several centuries BC and during the first millennium AD (SCN), Khotan was a small but immensely important kingdom.

Despite suffering waves of migration, invasion and domination by the powerful nations of the west and east, Khotan has always survived thanks to its abundant resources from jade and silk production.

Portrait of Ly Thanh Thien, the 10th century king of Khotan.

But above all, geography remained the most important factor of the kingdom - an oasis located on the largest trade route in the region at the time. A small and not very powerful kingdom that became an outpost of Indian culture during or shortly after the reign of Asoka the Great.

The kingdom flourished, probably during the pre-Mahayana Buddhism in the first century BC; is connected with the ancient kingdom of Gandhara and Kashmir in the northwest of India.

Khotan also played a huge role in spreading Buddhism from India to China. During the third and fifth centuries BC, the "Prajnaparamita Wisdom" and the "Flower Adornment Sutra" were first translated into Chinese from ancient texts found in Khotan.

The daughter of King Khotan who married the ruler of Dunhuang, Cao Yanlu, wore an elaborate jade-encrusted hat.

Kingdom is born

The mythical stories of the kingdom's birth revolve around the drying up of a lake at the behest of Shakyamuni Buddha. This place is considered a land that was placed on the map and blessed by the Buddhas of the past.

One of the two scriptures that preserves the legendary birth story of the land is the "Prophecy on Mount Goshringa". The sutra recounts the image of the Buddha flying to the land of Khotan with a large entourage, blessing the creatures living in the lake.

The head of the Buddha was found in Khotan around the 3-4th century.

He also bestowed sacred mountains, stupas and many places; taught there and made prophecies about the future importance of Khotan as a land that upholds and preserves the Dharma.

At the end of the sutta, the Buddha asked his disciple Shariputra and Holy King Vaishravana to deploy supernatural powers and drain the great lake into a river.

They cut a mountain into two large pieces and moved them out of the way so that the lake could drain into the nearby Gyisho River. However, no one is sure where the mythical lake may have been.

The famous Silk Road.

In another sutra - "Questions of Vimalaprabha", the story of Khotan's birth is completely different. When the Buddha predicted the rise of Khotan as a religious kingdom in the century after his parinirvana, the Buddha commanded the gods and bodhisattvas to protect the inhabitants of the land.

At the end of the book, the Buddha disappeared from the top of Mount Vulture and returned to meditate at Khotan, with the bodhisattvas sitting on lotus platforms floating in the great lake where the stupas and monasteries of the land are located. The future will appear when the lake dries up.

Golden period

The export of the Khotan kingdom was mainly jade, and green Khotan pearls began to be imported at least 1,200 BC.

By the Han Dynasty (206 BC - 220 AD), China's exports through Khotan were mainly silk, lacquer, and gold bullion, and were exchanged for jade from Central Asia; silk and other textiles including wool and linen from the Roman Empire; glass, wine, perfume and slaves from Rome.

There are even rare animals such as lions, ostriches and zebras, including the famous horses of the Ferghana Great Wilderness.

An Imperial Khotan Emerald Seal from the Qing Dynasty, Qianlong Dynasty.

During the Tang Dynasty (618-907), the main trade items that moved through the Khotan kingdom were textiles, including silk, cotton, and linen; metals, incense and other aromatic substances, furs, animals, ceramics and precious minerals.

Minerals typically include lapis lazuli (lapis lazuli) from Badakshan, Afghanistan; onyx from India; corals from the Indian coast and pearls from Sri Lanka.

Clay figurines were found in Khotan between the 2nd and 4th centuries.

A "forgotten" kingdom

The various versions of the myth of the birth of the Khotan kingdom have in common with another mountainous region, the Kathmandu Valley, which is also believed to have been formed by the draining of a lake.

Both lands are sites associated with seven successive buddhas. A group of people from China and India, they are believed to be the original settlers in both newly created valleys, and the first Indian settlers have connections with the Indian kings. Degree.

In the stories of the Khotan kingdom, Emperor Asoka's exiled son Kunala was also adopted by the Emperor of China before becoming the founding ruler of Khotan.

Ruins of Rawak Stupa outside Khotan, a Buddhist site dating from the late 3rd to 5th centuries.

Despite the overlap between the myths, the fates of the two lands were completely opposite. The Dharma has survived and thrived in the Kathmandu Valley, despite Nepal's many problems.

But not in Khotan. In fact, history has largely forgotten how important a kingdom's "jewel" once was.

By the 12th century, very little remained of Khotan's glorious Buddhist past. China's power has been waning. Tibet's imperial stature has long since collapsed. The Silk Road has lost its inherent importance. The wave of influence from the Turks and Iran, eventually led to the wave of Islam that swept through the region.

The wooden painting, discovered by Aurel Stein in the town of Dandan Oilik, depicts the legend of a princess who hid silkworm eggs in her headdress to smuggle from China to the Khotan Kingdom.

The power of the Mongols was growing. Many scholars and historians in Tibet seem to have been unaware of the contribution of the Khotan kingdom to their culture several centuries earlier.

The myth of the founding of Khotan is connected with how the Buddha created new opportunities in both time and space for the Dharma to be spread, taught, and practiced, but this is also part of the story. of the Buddhist literary journey refers to the inevitable decline of the Dharma.